Import & export practices
A lot has been said on the over-invoicing and under-invoicing in the export and import of goods and fraudulent claims of rebate/refund. But no concrete measure has ever been taken to curb the said...
View ArticleDeveloping an ‘expert system’
A SET of programmed instructions can develop an expert system (ES) in a prescribed logical way. Systematically, without having the profound knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI: it is the science...
View ArticleWater crisis
I AM a resident of Rawalpindi Cantonment and would like to highlight the inadequate supply of water in the area. Residents of Tariqabad are bearing the scorching heat and there is no electricity or...
View ArticleGhalib’s couplet: clarification
THIS refers to the review ‘A critical edition of a classic’ (June 2, Books & Authors) by Raza Rumi. While the review is pertinent and discusses the book Mahasin-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib in detail, the...
View ArticleSindh CM House: road closure
THE road in front of the Sindh Chief Minister House is a public property. Have the leaders vowed to make living in Karachi so difficult that those who can should leave?Please open the blocked roads in...
View ArticlePML-N govt and new challenges
UNLIKE the past in the 1990s, the PML-N government will now be confronted with multi-dimensional problems and challenges. The faltering economy, widespread loadshedding, galloping inflation, growing...
View Article‘At the crossroads’
THIS is apropos of your editorial ‘At the crossroads’ (June 9). The issues and threats to the new chief minister of Balochistan have been highlighted to the point.Balochistan, beginning with the...
View ArticleWazir Mansion: then and now
THIS is to attract the attention of readers towards an interesting fact about Wazir Mansion. Wazir Mansion is where the parents of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah lived at the time of his birth. The...
View ArticleFMDC: heaps of problems
THE Federal Medical and Dental College (FMDC), the first government medical college in the federal territory, is affiliated with PIMS and Quaid-i-Azam University. These top-notch institutes are the...
View ArticleEnergy crisis: short-term solutions
THE promise of change is coming! The first approach to catch the gas and electrical energy thieves must be supported whole-heartedly because without this nothing will work.Gas thieves are sponsored by...
View ArticleBurden on common man: Additional taxes
THE budgetary proposal binding all salaried and non-salaried taxpayers and certain categories of businessmen and professionals to file tax returns and wealth statements is a step in the right...
View ArticleFormidable threat: Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in Balochistan
AS Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, that claimed responsibility for the horrific violence in Quetta on Saturay, strikes again and again in Balochistan, there may be a temptation to regard it as an out-of-control...
View ArticleOfficial apathy: Peacocks die in Thar
ONE of the Thar desert’s most beautiful denizens, the peacock, is in the throes of a deadly epidemic, while officials who should be striving to do all they can to prevent the disease from claiming more...
View ArticleReforming the police
IN the wake of a successful democratic transition in Pakistan, the capacity of the new governments to ensure citizen security in the face of multiple national and international threats should be high...
View ArticleOld lamps for new
FOR months, now, I’ve been dwelling upon a phenomenon that I thought other people must have noticed too.What I’ve been dwelling upon is the fact that on much new electronic technology — computers and...
View ArticleThe other Guantanamo
PRESIDENT Obama’s counterterrorism address last month was full of promising rhetoric.Some commentators have welcomed the president’s commitment to close Guantanamo — an unfulfilled pledge since 2008 —...
View ArticleJudiciary goes native
IT is perhaps little known outside of legal circles, that the Supreme Court of Pakistan has recently initiated a programme for translating its judgments into Urdu and placing them on its website for...
View ArticleThe view from Taksim Square
I FIRST went to Istanbul’s famous Taksim Square as a teenaged student fifty years ago. Since then, I have been back many times as it is the city’s hub with many important arteries leading to different...
View ArticleLitbuzz: Women’s prize for fiction: Someone other than Mantel
In a face-off against the likes of Hilary Mantel and Zadie Smith and four other strong nominees for the 2013 Women’s prize for fiction, A.M. Homes won the judges approval for her dark satirical novel...
View ArticleColumn: Maulvi Nazir Ahmad’s prose
By Intizar HussainIn recent years, Mohammad Ikram Chaghatai has remained engaged in his research on old Delhi College. Last year his work was published under the title Qadeem Delhi College. In it we...
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